Warm weather brings a mild case of spring fever

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With predictions of a slow start to Melbourne's spring auction season, real estate agents are relieved at the timing of the October 9 election, which won't interfere with prime selling weekends.

Already suffering the fallout from a contracting market and the likelihood of an interest rate rise, agents and vendors have been spared further grief by the Prime Minister's timing, with the election coming at the end of a "dead period", when people were usually in transit after the September school holidays or following football finals.

Barry Plant Doherty director Barry Plant said vendors wanted an uninterrupted four-week campaign to attract as many buyers as possible. He said there were only a handful of weekends left that allowed vendors a clear selling run. Hocking Stuart managing director Greg Hocking said an election held in late October or November would have been disastrous.

The slow start to spring sales comes on the back of several announcements this week, including Australian Bureau of Statistics figures that showed Sydney house prices registering the biggest fall in the history of official data collection in the three months to June with house prices falling 5.4 per cent. Over the same period Melbourne's median house price has fallen by $13,100, or 3.5 per cent, to $357,900.

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The Real Estate Institute of Victoria estimated there had been a 40 per cent drop in the number of auctions this year as a result of buyer confusion and vendor apprehension with the new auction system. Chief executive Enzo Raimondo said the fall was not across the board with the inner suburbs recording only a 10 per cent decline in auctions.

He said the figures were skewed by outer suburbs shunning auctions in favour of private sales as the market softened. The volume of residential sales, including auctions and private sales, was down about 25 per cent this year, according to Mr Raimondo.

Spin-off industries were also reporting a slow start spring. Susan Petrie, of Inhouse Property Presentation Services, said it was the worst spring in her seven years in real estate, with inquiries down about 40 per cent compared with last year.